Periodic vegetation patterns (PVPs) are striking features of many global drylands. Although they have attracted wide research study, resulting in many hypotheses, their origin and controlling factors remain unresolved. Theoretical works dominate a large literature seeking to account for the occurrence and properties of PVPs, especially banded vegetation patterns (‘tiger bush’). In light of...

Self-organised patterns of vegetation are a characteristic feature of many semi-arid regions. In particular, banded vegetation is typical on hillsides. Mathematical modelling is widely used to study these banded patterns, because there are no laboratory replicates. I will describe the development of spatial patterns in an established model for banded vegetation via a Turing bifurcation. I will ...

The distribution of banded rail habitat use in a saltmarsh was measured by recording the rate at which their footprints accumulated. The relationships between habitat use, time of day, state of the tide, and 15 environmental parameters, were investigated using multivariate analysis. Banded rails were most active in the morning and evening and immediately after a tide. They did not venture far f...

In many semi-arid environments, vegetation cover is sparse, and is selforganized into large-scale spatial patterns. In particular, banded vegetation is typical on hillsides. Mathematical modelling is widely used to study these banded patterns, and many models are effectively extensions of a coupled reaction–diffusion–advection system proposed by Klausmeier (1999 Science 284 1826–8). However, th...

[1] Mathematical models of banded vegetation patterns predict rapid upslope migration of vegetated patches not realized in field observations, a key point of disagreement between theory and observation. It is shown that the disagreement between model results and field observations can arise from seed dispersal dynamics. Two representations of biomass movement are used to test the hypothesis tha...